An Imaginary Game
by TheUnforgiven137
Summary: Neku has drifted away from his friends, and without anything to prove that the Reaper's Game was real, he starts to lose his mind. One-shot.


**Author's note: This version is updated with the new ending as of 4/25/2013.**

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_The game is over. Your friends are gone. You left them so long ago. Do you even know who you are anymore?_

Neku's shoes slap the pavement, his steps uneven and staggering. The voice in his head is berating him once more. San Francisco is cold this time of year, and the wind cuts through his tattered clothes with no remorse.

_It's always cold here, don't you know that by now? And what would Shiki say if she saw you right now? You look hideous._

The thirty year old tries to keep moving, tries to find his way back to his apartment. He thinks he's lost but his vision is so distorted he can't tell for sure.

_You ran away from them; ran away from _him_; and for what? So you could wander around a foreign city and revert back to your old self while they forget you?_

The truth was he didn't know why he had run away; life was going so well for him, and he met with his newfound friends every week. But one day the group simply stopped meeting, each of them having reached adulthood and the time to move on to other places and other lives. Neku tried to move on, tried to continue with his art, tried to hold on to the beautiful world around him, to the hope that things would work out, to the hope that the man that killed him all those years ago would someday desire to see him again.

Neku waited and waited. But he never showed up. Joshua never showed up. And one day, it became too much for him. He packed his bags and left Shibuya, bouncing from place to place until he settled in the cold city he now walked in.

_And you still can't forgive him, can you? You desperately hope that he'll come and find you, come and apologize for everything he said and did, but you still can't forgive him. You're chasing a ghost._

/I'm not chasing him./

_But you are. Maybe not with your body, but your soul chases him every day._

Neku finally finds himself at the door of his apartment, and he fumbles with the keys before finally getting the door open and stepping inside. The apartment is nearly bare, the walls plain grey and the carpets old and dirty. There's a bed in the corner, a tiny open kitchen, and an old TV set. Clothes are strewn about haphazardly, and there are dishes piled on the counters.

Neku pulls his shoes off and falls onto his bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. His stomach rumbles, but he can't summon the will to get up and go to the refrigerator. He doubts there's any food in there anyway.

_It was all a dream you know. They never existed. Shiki, Beat, Rhyme, and especially Joshua; you just made them up. The Reaper's Game was just a pathetic attempt of your mind to give your life meaning. You are nothing more than a human, destined to die and pass into nonexistence._

/But it _was _real! Dying saved my life…/

_You just like to think that because you're scared that I'm right. You're scared that Joshua didn't really exist and that's why he never came back to you. And it's all true._

/Shut up!/

_You made him up along with everything else because you were lonely, because you needed someone who could understand you._

/I said _shut up_!/

_But in the end even your own delusion betrayed you._

"_Shut up!_" Neku screamed into the empty air of his apartment, his voice echoing back at him off the walls. "It was real! Shiki, Beat, Rhyme, Joshua… they saved my life!"

_If you truly believe that, why did you run away from them? Why did you turn to a life of living on your own and never having a true place you could call home if they were real? Why would you ever leave them? Why would you ever leave Shibuya?_

"Because I was afraid!"

_Of what?_

"Of Joshua!"

_And why is that?_

"I was afraid to be hurt by him! I was afraid to stand there year after year as he refused to see me face to face! I was afraid that I would never be able to forgive him because he would never allow himself to be forgiven!"

_But he's not real. You made him up. You can forgive him any time you want because you never died and you never met him. All those life changing words were things you made up, things you told yourself because life was too painful to live without them._

"That's wrong!"

_And those are words you still desperately cling to, even as you don't heed them and let your entire world fall to pieces around you._

"Stop it!"

_Everything you touch turns to ash. You're too afraid to see yourself for what you are because deep down you are so afraid of death that you made up your own afterlife just to escape the fear._

"But I did die! I was used in a game by a god who wanted to destroy Shibuya because it was corrupt! I was used like a toy and then tossed away…"

_That's right, no matter what, real or not, you never meant anything to the being called Joshua. He never came back. He never spoke to you again. Delusion or not, he wants nothing to do with you._

"That's not true! He's probably just afraid to face me after what he did…"

_After all this time? He's not a child like you, he can face his fears._

"But he did something unspeakable! Of course he would be scared—"

_So now you're defending him? In the face of your anger you defend the one who is the target of it?_

"I know I'm defending him! It's because I know he'll apologize one day."

_It's been fifteen years, Neku. If he was going to apologize he would have done it already. He's not a coward. You didn't design him that way._

"I didn't design him at all! He's a real person! He's the person who put me through hell and back, he's the person who used me for his own selfish reasons! He's the person who saved my life!"

_But in the end it doesn't matter, does it? You'll never see him again. You'll continue on, driven insane by your delusions and loneliness, until you reach the end. And you'll die cold and alone, still waiting for a man that doesn't exist._

A heavy silence hung in the air. Neku had lost his ability to try and fight back, knowing the voice was right. Joshua wasn't real. The Reaper's Game wasn't real. How could it be? People don't die and come back to life. There was no saving grace to his existence; he would simply continue on like this until he died under the weight of his own fear.

Neku sat up, reaching into the small nightstand to his side. The familiar weight of the gun in his hand was almost comforting, him having held it in his hands more times than he could count. It was a strangely shaped gun, it being the gun Joshua made him wield so long ago in his delusion. He had refused to shoot Joshua with this gun. He had even let himself get shot just to avoid it. The pain had seemed so real…

As he examined it, his fingers traced over the small pin on his shirt as had become a habit for him. He couldn't bear to look at the stylized skull that decorated its surface.  
"I must be crazy. I made up this entire story, involving this gun and this pin that I got from who knows where, because my life was meaningless, and I was afraid. And I've been hearing voices in my head for years, voices pointing out my delusions to me. Maybe it's time to really use this..."

Neku slowly lifted the gun to his head, lying back and closing his eyes.

_Give up on yourself, and you give up on the world._

Neku's eyes shot open, the gun falling from his now limp hand.

"Who's there?!" The words sounded so familiar, the lilt in the voice tickling the edges of his mind, daring him to try and remember it.  
_I thought I told you that once. Yet here you are, crazed and holding a gun to your head._

Neku's eyes swept around, looking for any trace of the origin of the voice. But there was no one there. The walls seemed to press in on him, the whole room swaying in his vision.

_Look at you. How pathetic. You fought so hard for this life and yet you're so willing to just throw it away. Why did I even bother giving it back to you?_

"_J-Joshua_?" Neku's eyes widened in disbelief, the voice finally revealing itself. "Where are you? Show yourself!"

_What makes you think I'm even here? You haven't been able to understand anything, to separate reality from fiction for so long… you can't even decide if I really exist or not._

"But you have to! I've believed in you—!"

_And yet you've denounced me enough to want to pull that trigger._

Neku was silent for a long while, trying to clear his head, trying to _understand_. The voice giggled maddeningly.

_Don't bother, Neku. You'll never figure it out. Whether I'm here or not, whether you really died or not, you'll never be able to say it was real or it wasn't. Just give it up. You're as good as dead anyway._

"So that's what it is then? You've tormented me for years, trying to force me to accept that I made it all up! And now you're here, claiming to be him, so you can make sure I die!" Neku's voice rang in his ears. His own words became his undoing. He could do nothing but accept that this was another thing he made up, a disembodied voice claiming to be Joshua. As if in answer to this realization, the voice spoke no more.

Neku stared into the darkness that now engulfed the room, anger and despair boiling within him. He was overwhelmed with claustrophobia, the whole room seeming to whisper lies and deceit into his ears until he finally leapt from his bed and ran out the door.

Even when his feet hit the pavement outside the apartment complex he didn't stop running. Apparitions appeared standing in windows and on rooftops, taunting him. Voices echoed through his head, mixed with the cacophony of passing strangers. All of them looked like Joshua. Every single face that passed bore that characteristic smirk.

Neku found himself suddenly at the airport, his mind hell bent on getting to Shibuya as fast as possible. Whatever money he had must have been enough because the next thing he knew his plane was touching down in Tokyo. The short train ride into Shibuya flashed past his eyes before he even saw it, and finally he sprinted out of the station and back into his hometown.

The pain that shot through him with his first breath nearly sent him to the ground, but somehow he managed to keep his legs under him, staggering away towards nothing in particular. The familiar environment was not something welcoming, rather something painful, like old wounds being ripped open over and over with each glance. Neku couldn't distinguish the phantoms from the people, but both seemed painfully disinterested in him.

_Well, well, look where you are. You always knew you'd end up here, didn't you? The journey ends where it begins._

"Is it a journey that's ending? Then where is my salvation? If this is the end, I want answers!" Neku whispered to himself, unaware of the people who turned to look.

_You don't get answers. No one does. Why do you think you created Joshua? You wanted answers and you got none, so you made your own._

"I don't believe you!" The outburst caused more heads to turn his way, but his eyes were firmly fixed on his slowly shuffling feet.

_And what does it matter? You'll see soon enough. You might as well forgive your ghost now; let your imaginary murderer go. You'll pass into oblivion in a matter of days, sick as your mind and body have been all these years. You spent all your money to get here. You'll probably starve._

"Then I'll starve! I don't care anymore! Whether it's erasure or afterlife, I can't continue like this!"

_Suit yourself. I always thought you'd go out with more of a bang._

The words were accompanied by a cruel laugh. Neku didn't even hear it, his mind numbing and confusing his thoughts. Minutes stretched into hours and into days, Neku floating between passing out in random alleyways and dragging himself through the city. He wasn't aware of anything; not of the pain in his stomach, not of the ache all over his body, not of the people who cast furtive glances in his direction.

His eyes were blind until they finally alighted on that mural. The place of his supposed death, the center of his entire world. The eye of the storm. The reaper's stare bored down on him, utterly indifferent yet seeming to judge all that he was. He felt exposed under that stare, every thought floating before him in plain view.

Neku's eyes roamed around the ever familiar shapes, trying to remember the meaning that it once had to him, the hope that once filled him when he looked upon it. He saw phantoms once more, pale flickers of Joshua, of Minamimoto, of blood…

Finally he collapsed onto his knees, tears spilling freely down his face. He stared up at the reaper with the attentiveness of someone whose world was coming to an end. He reached out as though to touch it, fingers shaking, lips whispering barely intelligible words.

"Joshua, whether you'll be here to welcome me or not…" He felt himself begin to fall. "I forgive you."

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**Author's notes: First off, thank you to everyone who read the original version (especially those who left reviews) and to everyone who reads this updated version. I didn't like how the first version went, so I decided to rewrite the ending. It ended on a happy note before, but I took that out because that wasn't really my intent when I started writing it the first time, so I tried to stick with the original idea while rewriting. Needless to say, it is more depressing this time. Anyway, thank you and I hope you all enjoy it!**


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